Opinion Articles
H&P encourages historians to use their expertise to shed light on issues of the day. If you are interested in submitting an opinion piece for publication, please see our editorial guidelines. We currently have 342 Opinion Articles listed by date and they are all freely searchable by theme, author or keyword.
Rishi Sunak’s Seven Bins
Rishi Sunak's statement on changes to the government's policy on Net Zero contained a headline-grabbing pledge to scrap plans to force households to have seven different recycling bins. While the prime minister clearly expects this to play well with the electorate, history suggests that the public are ready to adapt their habits and that there are dangers in playing politics with waste disposal.
Read More1924, Keir Starmer and New Labour
Kier Starmer appears to be looking more and more to the New Labour era to guide him to election victory. He may well be right to do so, since 1997-2010 was a period of sustained electoral success for Labour, unparalleled before or since.
Read MoreThe price of everything and the value of nothing: museums, thefts and British society
Media coverage of the recent alleged thefts from the British Museum has focused on the monetary value of the missing artefacts rather than their historical and cultural significance. This in turn reflects the commercialisation of the museum sector. A greater engagement with the scholarly community could enhance institutions' awareness and appreciation of their holdings and hence reduce the risk of items disappearing almost unnoticed.
Read MoreSuez, Brexit, and the Future of the Special Relationship
Comparisons with the Suez Crisis of 1956 regularly appear in the press. Parallels have been drawn with Brexit as a foreign policy failure of similar or greater magnitude. Suez had major implications for Anglo-American relations. But the recent meeting between Joe Biden and Rishi Sunak suggests the transatlantic bond remains strong. So how does Suez help us understand the changing nature of this relationship?
Read MoreArming Ukraine: lessons from the European conflicts of the twentieth century
While it is tempting to read the Russian attack on Ukraine in terms of a revival of Cold War geopolitics, we need to go further back – to the failed appeasement of Nazi Germany and to the Spanish Civil War – to find more pointed lessons for how the West should respond to Putin's aggression.
Read MoreThe elephant in the room: the benefits of a progressive alliance
Alastair J Reid asks why the main opposition parties are so against forming alliances with each other, and suggests that they look more deeply into their own party histories.
Read MoreBoris Becker’s prison revelations and the role of celebrities in prison reform
From Oscar Wilde to Boris Becker, Professor Rosalind Crone asks whether a celebrity prepared to share their lived experience of the prison system could play an important role in driving radical prison reform.
Read MoreThe deep past provides a context for King Charles’s coronation
With 6 May looming, David Pratt argues that more engagement is needed with the medieval roots of the modern coronation service. History might help to address some tricky modern problems.
Read MoreLineker is following a long tradition of football sticking it to the authorities
The recent controversy around Gary Lineker's comments on the government's approach to immigration and asylum has seen calls for politics to be kept out of sport. But as Chris Lee argues, sport has always been political and Lineker is just the latest figure from the footballing world to stand up to the authorities.
Read MoreThe self-reflective turn in historical writing and the demise of identity history
This paper briefly considers some of the issues addressed in Stefan Berger’s new book, History and Identity. How Historical Theory Shapes Historical Practice, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2022.
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